I really like the spoofer mainly just so you can use more heat. You can keep it warm enough without it, but in the cold of winter you will be... colder than you could be without it. For my wife who seems to be eternally cold, it is worth its weight in gold.

I bet 3rd gens don't have near the heat issues in winter with that fancy exhaust heat exchanger.

I was kind of set on buying a Volt after Cowmeat posted about his (preheating would be very nice), but now's not the time financially. I've decided to keep the Prius till it dies, so it's getting a few hundred dollars worth of lovin'. I even got it some new spark plugs. We'll see if they end up getting installed before it hits 130k miles (still running fine on what I believe to be the originals). By the time it dies, used Gen2 Volts and Bolts should be pretty affordable.

Also considering mounting a space heater in the cabin for preheating. I guess we'll see how cold it gets this winter and how well the block and seat heaters work.

My brother and I installed the new spark plugs and the block heater. Plugs looked pretty good for having 128k miles on them. I don't think I'll be replacing them again, regardless of how long the car lasts.

The block heater was kind of an adventure. I put it in from the top since I was already removing the wiper assembly to do the plugs. While my brother was feeling around for the hole that I told him was about the size of his finger, he got his finger stuck in it. He got it out after a couple minutes of panic. Getting the heater down to the hole requires some tricky maneuvering. I think I would recommend those with shorter arms install from the top, while longer and bigger arms would probably have an easier time from below. I have the cord sticking out of the upper grill for now. It took the coolant temp from ~50F to ~95F in about an hour. Can't wait to see how it handles some real cold.

Got pipe insulation a couple weeks ago and blocked the upper grill. Not sure if it helps warm up much at 50-60F, but it seems to keep the warm up time similar to those temps even when it's 30 out. I think I'll need to do something about the gaping hole under the engine bay if I want to get any further temperature increases. I just need to get ramps or visit my parents again.

Discovered a bad thing about having the block heater plug come out the upper grill, it got completely covered in our first snow yesterday. Shouldn't be a shock hazard (I unplug the extension cord from the wall before leaving, so there's no power when I plug the heater in), but having it freeze together would not be fun.

Replaced the 12v battery with a yellow top Optima at the end of November. Kind of a tight squeeze, the Optima is a bit taller and the plastic handle keeps the floor/cover piece from sitting completely flat. Car wouldn't start with the headlights on (started after I turned them off), checked the battery and the resting voltage was low.

Complete grill block works great around town and highway trips below 25-30F. Above 30-35F on the highway, I have to remove half of top slit's foam (so 1/4th of the upper block). I think it's at about 50F that the rest of the top slit has the be open for highway speeds. I'll probably remove the rest of the upper block in another month or two for the summer.

I finally installed an EV mode button after running the wire last year. Drilled a hole in the blank spot next to the cluster dimmer and glued in a long button tact switch I salvaged from something long ago. I highly recommend adding an EV mode button in the Gen2 Prius. Using it at the wrong times can hurt your mileage, but it's super handy to be able to move around the driveway without the ICE kicking on or to do manual P&G if it isn't warm enough to go into full hybrid mode.

After nearly 5 years of ownership, I finally added smooth wheel covers to my Prius. I didn't want to make any permanent modifications and I wanted them to either have access to the valve stem and lug nuts or be easy to remove. I settled on easy to remove, using velcro wire ties to attach them to the wheel trim rings that came with the car.